Charges over sweepstakes machines dismissed

A state judge has dismissed the criminal case against the remaining defendants connected to 77 sweepstakes machines Honolulu police seized from various arcades on Oahu in 2012.

Circuit Judge Rom Trader on Thursday permanently dismissed felony gambling promotion and racketeering charges against former arcade workers Quentin Canencia, Gary Danley Jr., Desiree Haina, Michael Madali Jr. and Clayton Simeona because, he said, the state committed prosecutorial misconduct by withholding from the defendants a report from its expert witness.

The expert testified in front of the grand jury that indicted the defendants.

The dismissal with prejudice prevents the state from recharging the case.

“We will review the judge’s ruling and look at whether there is ground for an appeal, and we believe there is,” city Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro said in a written statement.

Trader also ruled that even though the state did eventually turn over the report, after he ordered it, the delay pushed the case past the 180 days within which the state is required to take felony defendants to trial to guarantee their constitutional right to a speedy trial.

He had previously dismissed with prejudice the criminal cases against another former arcade worker, two former arcade owners and the distributor of the sweepstakes machines because the state took too long to take them to trial.

All nine of the defendants were first indicted in 2014 on 414 gambling promotion, racketeering and money laundering charges. For them the dismissals end more than two years of uncertainty.

“We were all just in limbo, trying to live your day not knowing what’s going to happen,” Canencia said. “We really couldn’t move forward.”

Trader said he found puzzling the number of problems the state has had with the case given the amount of time and money that went into it.

“For whatever reason, (the state) could not seem to get it correct,” he said, “And certainly what did not help was the fact that (the prosecutor) had this case assigned to several different prosecutors in a series.”

There have been seven different deputy prosecutors assigned to the case. Only the first one, Katherine Kealoha, and the last, Dean Young, remain employed by the city Department of the Prosecuting Attorney. Some of the other deputies chose to leave the department within weeks of getting assigned to the case. The department failed to send a deputy for a court hearing in October.

Because of the dismissals, there will be no determination by a state judge or jury on whether the sweepstakes machines are gambling devices. The defendants in the state criminal case sued to get the machines back, and a federal judge ruled that the machines are gambling devices. But that ruling, which is on appeal, had no bearing on the state criminal case.

Honolulu police seized dozens of other sweepstakes machines from other arcades, but none of the people associated with them has been charged with any crimes.